This Time The Call Came From Doctors: Stop Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence could harm the health of millions and pose an existential threat to humanity, doctors and public health experts have said, calling for a halt to the development of artificial general intelligence until regulations are in place.
In Silicon Valley, prominent figures in the tech world, including Elon Musk, had called for a halt to artificial intelligence work until the necessary regulations were put in place.
A similar call came from the medical world this time.
AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by improving the diagnosis of diseases, finding better ways to treat patients and spreading care to more people.
But the development of artificial intelligence also has the potential to produce negative health effects, according to health experts from the UK, US, Australia, Costa Rica and Malaysia writing in the journal BMJ Global Health.
Risks associated with medicine and healthcare include “the potential for AI errors to harm patients, issues with data privacy and security, and the use of AI in ways that exacerbate social and health inequalities,” they said.
An example of harm, they said, was the use of an AI-driven pulse oximeter that overestimated blood oxygen levels in darker-skinned patients, resulting in inadequate treatment of their hypoxia.
But they also warned of broader, global threats from AI to human health and even human existence.
AI could harm the health of millions through the use of lethal autonomous weapons and the mental health effects of mass unemployment if AI-based systems displace large numbers of workers.
